Thursday, October 18, 2012

Nagoya holograms rumbled!

I've written on the subject of fake HT antennas on eBay before. It's a matter of concern whether an antenna is fake or genuine. Lately the antennas sold under the Nagoya brand name have come under suspicion. Recently purchased antennas have blue lettering printed directly on to the base, similar to some fake antennas purporting to be made by the reputable Diamond Antenna company.

Two identical fake hologram labels

These new Nagoyas come in an orange plastic sleeve rather than a yellow one. The sleeves carry a silver hologram label with two serial numbers on them. Presumably the idea is that if you want to check an antenna is genuine you can contact the manufacturer, give them the numbers and they will confirm or deny that the product is genuine.

Today I read in a Yahoo group that someone had obtained an antenna with an identical hologram sticker to another member. I have two such antennas but I had never thought to check the stickers. When I did, I found that the stickers that came with two different Nagoya antennas were identical!

You probably can't read the numbers off the picture above (try clicking the picture to see the full-size version) but the top number is TWx00647488x where x is a Chinese character.
The lower number is CNx3333081x. If you have recently purchased Nagoya antennas and got ones with the silver sticker, I bet they have the same serial numbers!

It seems that the only way to be sure of getting an HT antenna that works is to buy a Diamond branded antenna from your reputable US, UK or EU dealer! Better still, take an antenna analyzer with you and test it before handing over any money.